


i spend all night trying to remember your face (like trying to get blood from a stone)

by bloodaccusedstones



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Mostly Fluff, a good mix of fluff and angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 19:37:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2823659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodaccusedstones/pseuds/bloodaccusedstones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Okay, ready? One, two!” She’s running and you’re pretty sure the point of counting to three, is saying the fucking three. You run after her and you could use your vampire speed to catch up to her, but she’s laughing and it’s the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard, and the light is reflecting off her hair, making it shine like gold, and you decide to let her win.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i spend all night trying to remember your face (like trying to get blood from a stone)

///

You cough and Laura looks away from her computer to look at you. You’ve had a nasty cough after you survived the pit, and your leg didn’t heal right, so you walk with a slight limp. You clear your throat and Laura raises an eyebrow at you. You shake your head at her and with reluctance, she turns back around and continues writing her lit paper.

You are centuries old and you’ve had your fair share of bumps and bruises. _More_ than your fair share. You have lost everyone you have ever loved; you have seen death and you have dealt out death like it was candy.

A cough and limp doesn’t phase you in the slightest.

///

You don’t remember your birth family very well. Sometimes, you get sudden memories of them: what they smelled like or how their laughs sounded. It always makes your stomach ache (when you were murdered, your killer sliced your abdomen open from your sternum to your pelvis) (you never saw the sea before you died, but you thought that the red blood flowing out of your body looked like gentle waves) (you saw the sea not long after that; it did).

You recall that others said you looked like your mother and you remember that you were your father’s favorite child. You had three, no, four siblings, and you think that only one other sibling had hair as dark as yours (your younger brother?) (did you even have a younger brother?). The others had light hair, the shade that your father’s was, the same shade of Laura’s hair, but maybe a bit lighter.

Yes, you did have a younger brother and a younger sister. They were close in age, a year or two apart. They were inseparable, like you and your older sister was (yes, you remember now) (it comes to you in pieces). They liked running in the grass with no shoes on.

///

You remember their deaths clearly, it’s something you can’t forget. You remember shrill screams and blood trails and puddles of red and still bodies. Blood splattered on the wall with your younger sibling’s bodies under it, red reaching out to you.

You remember screaming, then searing pain, then nothing.

///

It’s days like this, days where you remember so much about your birth family (when this happens, you repeat what you remember in your head over and over again) (you’ve forgotten them too many times), that you spend a very long time out at night. Laura gets worried; you usually get back before she leaves for class in the morning. On these days, you’re gone for two days. You sneak back into the dorm when she’s sleeping and fall asleep quickly.

When you wake up, there’s always a blanket draped over you and a warm glass of blood on your headboard.

///

You’re sipping on a cup of blood and flipping through a philosophy book that you’ve read at least twelve times and Laura is typing away furiously. You rest the book on your outstretched legs and watch her. Her forehead is scrunched up and she has her tongue sticking out in concentration. You smile softly; you love her and all her quirks (she has a lot of quirks). You cough and shift your leg over.

“Is your leg bothering you again?” She asks but doesn’t stop typing. You don’t want her help (you don’t want to disturb her work) so you say no. That doesn’t convince her because she stands up and practically runs out of the room. You’re confused. What the fuck? Where did she go?

Your mental questions are answered when she walks back in the room, closes the door, stands next to your bed and holds out a cloth bag towards you. You look at her with an eyebrow raised, and she sighs, grabs your forearm gently, makes you grab the bag, and leads your arm over to your leg, where she lets go of you and sits back down at her desk and starts typing.

It’s ice. She got you ice.

It’s such a small gesture, but no one has treated you with so much gentleness or kindness before, and it makes your wrists hurt. You place the ice on your leg, lean back, and close your eyes.

“Thank you,” you whisper.

“Of course. You don’t need to act all tough around me, Carm. I can tell when you’re hurt.” The sound of computer keys clacking fills the room.

///

A snowball hits you in the face, and you growl while wiping the insulting powder off you. You hear laughter and it’s Laura’s, so when you get all the snow off of you, you sprint towards her. She screams and you laugh, and you know you both look like you're crazy, but you don't really give a shit, and she threw _snow_ at you.

You grab her arms and pull her down to the ground and she falls in a giant pile of snow. She’s shrieking at you and you have tears running down your cheeks.

 _“Carmilla!”_ She’s pushing at your shoulders because you have your hands on her sides, keeping her in place, and there is snow all in her jacket. You’re doubled over with laughter, and you haven’t laughed in years, and you will not let anyone, not even Laura, mess up this moment.

You laugh so hard that your voice is the only thing to be heard and you’ve lost your strength, so you’re laying on Laura’s body, and she gave up trying to get up a while ago, so she’s just laying under you. Your head is in the crook of her neck and one of your cheeks is touching the snow, and you feel eighteen.

Laura shoves you off of her and you land on your back in the snow, and you’re still laughing. Laura gets up and shakes all the snow out of her coat and hair, sighs, leans over and puts you on your feet. You’re standing in front of her, chuckling, as she brushes off the snow that has accumulated on you. She looks at your face, and your cheeks are aching from smiling but you’re coughing lightly now, and she wipes a snowflake off your nose.

You smile, which she returns, and you kiss her. When you pull away, she grabs your hand and leads you back to your dorm. You limp next her (running after her probably wasn’t a good idea, but you could never regret doing anything for Laura).

///

You’re wrapped up in blankets and Laura is resting her head on your chest. You run your hand through her soft hair and untangle the knots in it. You had gotten back from outside and you both took a shower to rinse off the chill. You had made Laura a cup of hot chocolate, which she kissed you for, and things quickly became heated, and if you knew earlier that hot chocolate equaled sex, you would’ve made her a cup ages ago.

You’re clearing your throat again. Laura asks you if you’re fine (“Yes, cupcake, I’m okay) and she says the snow probably didn’t help your chest problems at all. You hum at that, then tickle her sides. She yelps and smacks your stomach, which makes you grunt, and you flip her over on her back. She’s laughing and you grab her wrists and hold them above her head. You kiss her, hard, but she is a delicate flower and you are a hurricane, but even hurricanes calm, so you lighten, become soft, and kiss her as gently as you can.

You lay down on your side next to her and she turns to look at you. You run a finger over the scars you made on her neck, her collar bones, her jawline, her cheekbones, her brow, down the side of her face (earlier, when you had been hovering over her, taking your shirt off, she had touched the scar that ran down the length of your torso so gently, you almost cried). She is looking at you with soft eyes, like you are a treasure, and you cup her cheek and rub your thumb over her cheekbone.

“I have never loved anyone like I love you.” You whisper it, because she is the only one who can hear these words, the only one who has ever heard them, and the only one who ever will.

You are centuries old, but in all your years, you have never seen anything as beautiful as Laura. You never will.

///

You make her hot chocolate in the morning. You don’t have sex, but you’ll settle for her kisses any day.

///

You wake up to Laura yelling your name. You’re breathing hard and everything is blurry, and you realize you can’t see through all of your tears. Your chest is heaving and your tears are hot, and you remember how it felt when your arms were burning when you were holding the sword (the nightmares were bad tonight) (everything was red and dirt and black nothingness) (you heard screams from your family, from Ell, from you).

“Baby, baby, listen to me. Okay? Listen to my voice. Do you need anything?” She repeats herself and you point to the window; the blinds are down and she understands what you want. She runs over and pulls them up and the stars are twinkling and you’re not in a coffin, you’re not buried under the ground.

She sits behind you and wraps her arms around your waist. She’s taking deep breathes and whispering in your ear, “Baby, breathe when I do. You’re here. You’re safe. You’re in your room at Silas, and you’re safe, and you’re with me. You’re with me. Carmilla, you’re safe. There you go, breathe with me. There you go. You’re safe, baby.”

It’s ridiculous, you don’t even have to breath, you’re dead, but you are so grateful to her. She’s sniffling and your shoulder is damp, so you cover her hands with yours and pat hers. She rambles about her younger years and old friends just to distract you. It does.

///

“Carm?”

“Hm?”

“Why do you need to see the stars?”

You have been gazing at them for as long as she has been holding you. When you were buried under all that wood and blood and dirt and sorrow, you had seen nothing but black. You had thought you had gone blind. They remind you that you can see, that you’re not under the earth, rotting.

You forget things about your birth family more than you should, but you always remember what your father told you about the stars. If you think hard enough, you can remember some of the details. He had led you outside, you think you were young, and he pointed to a star in the sky and said,

“My dear Mircalla, if you become lost or miss those you care for, look up. They are watching you, always glittering for you, my child. They will lead you home. They will never leave you. They are your family.”

You’re not sure if you want to tell her this, but exhaustion is setting in and your eyelids are becoming heavy so your judgement is off.

“My father told me about them. That’s the only thing I constantly remember about my birth family. I- they remind me I’m not in that coffin. They remind me that I’m alive.”

She nods and pushes her nose into the crook of your neck.

///

“Cupcake, what are you doing?”

“I told you, Carm, I’m going to race you to the diner.”

“But my leg-”

"Hasn’t been bothering, that’s what you said.”

“You’re the one always telling me to be careful.”

“Carm,” she whines and you roll your eyes.

“Fine. But I get special treatment when we get back home.” She nods.

“Yes! Oh, and no vamp speed or anything.”

“Fine!”

“Okay, ready? One, two!” She’s running and you’re pretty sure the point of counting to three, is saying the _fucking_ three. You run after her and you could use your vampire speed to catch up to her, but she’s laughing and it’s the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard, and the light is reflecting off her hair, making it shine like gold, and you decide to let her win.

///

She won.

///

She takes care of your leg when you get back.

///

You decide to take her to the roof one night. She had asked where you always go at night, so you grabbed her hand and took her up here. She gasps and says it's so beautiful and she could see why you love it so much. You tell her you could see the stars clearly from here, and she kisses your cheek.

You stand there together, wrapped in each others arms for a long time, and when she starts to walk away, you ask her what she was doing. She replied, telling you that you should say something to your family, and that is private. You wonder if she ever talks to her mother, and you want to ask her, but you let go of her hand instead. You look back up to the stars and you hear her descending the stairs. They’re twinkling and gleaming at you, and you can’t help but feel the ache that resonates deep in your chest. You miss them, so much. There’s so much you should tell them, but there’s not enough words to do so. You stare at them for the longest time and you say the first thing that comes to your mind.

“Es tut mir leid. Ich werde euch nie vergessen. Nicht schon wieder.”

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by the lyrics: 
> 
> You are the eternal thing that comes and goes  
> And that furthermore this galaxy is a function  
> Of all other galaxies  
> And that vast thing that you see far off, far off, far off  
> With telescopes and look and look and look  
> One day you're going to wake up and say  
> "Why, that's me!"  
> And in knowing that you'll see that you never die  
> -Eternity by Jacoo


End file.
